


Woman Much Missed

by PenguinofProse



Series: S4 Time Jump AUs [15]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya - Time Jump, F/M, Ghost Clarke, Post-Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya, Radio Calls, kind of, radio calls but different, soulmatey magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25577740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: S4 time jump AU. Bellamy thinks he is imagining things when visions of Clarke appear to him on the Ring.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: S4 Time Jump AUs [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764070
Comments: 26
Kudos: 147





	Woman Much Missed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Kiwi_Lady_Pendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Kiwi_Lady_Pendragon/gifts).



> Hello and welcome to another time jump AU! This was a request for Bellamy seeing Clarke whilst on the Ring whenever she makes a radio call through "some kind of hand-wavey soulmate magic". Huge thanks to Kiwi (can I call you Kiwi?!) for the prompt and to Stormpkr for betaing. Happy reading!
> 
> Please note this story contains some canon-compliant references to suicide.

Here's a pretty cool poem you might want to read to get the most out of this story:

The Voice by Thomas Hardy

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,  
Saying that now you are not as you were  
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,  
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,  
Standing as when I drew near to the town  
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,  
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness  
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,  
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,  
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,  
Leaves around me falling,  
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,  
And the woman calling.

.......

Bellamy is familiar with the concept of going out of one's mind with grief. He's read the literature, after all – Achilles and his wrath, Medea's self-destruction, Cleopatra's suicide. So, yeah, he knows it's a thing that happens.

And he supposes that, more specifically, he's not surprised to find it happening to _him_. He loved Clarke, and Clarke is dead. He left her behind, in fact. So it strikes him that this is the perfect set of circumstances for a little slice of insanity.

All the same, he's still shocked to see her.

They've been on the Ring three days when, all of a sudden, she just pops up in the corner of his room and starts speaking.

"Bellamy. Hey. It's me. I think – I think I'm OK. It's maybe been, what, three days or so?"

He stands up and rushes over to her. Of course he does – obviously a grief-stricken hallucination of the dead best friend he was rather in love with merits closer consideration. She looks somehow _insubstantial_ , he notes, kind of pale and a bit see-through. That's maybe to be expected – ghosts often look like that, in movies and TV. That must be where his subconscious got this crazy idea from.

He moves closer, passes a hand through the space she is occupying. Sure enough, there's nothing there, not even a tingling sensation in his skin as he skims through the air.

The figment of his imagination keeps talking. "Anyway, I'm doing OK. I'm in the lab, and I've got some food, and I should be fine for a few weeks at least. And then I guess we'll go see whether this nightblood solution works."

No. No no no no no. A simple hallucination, he could deal with. But why on Earth is he torturing himself by visualising her surviving, exploring non-existent avenues that could leave her clinging to life?

She's dead, and he needs to face it.

She's dead, and that's why he's going out of his mind with grief, and watching her taunt him from the corner of his bedroom.

…...

She's not in his bedroom, the next time he sees her. She's in the bathroom while he takes a piss. He supposes that's embarrassing, the idea that ghost-Clarke is watching him use the urinal, but it's not as embarrassing as the fact he's hallucinating her in the first place so he doesn't dwell on it.

"Bellamy, hey. I found some more ration packs! I can't believe it. It's almost like – maybe my luck is finally turning, you know? Maybe I'll be OK." She gives a cold laugh. "I guess five years alone down here isn't exactly good luck. But I'm alive."

He snorts. She's not alive, she's dead. And that's why he's losing the plot and imagining her watching him take a piss.

He finishes peeing, washes his hands, ready to get out of there.

Only he can't bring himself to leave, somehow, not while his imaginary friend is still talking to him.

"I found some books here, so I've got something to do other than just calling you and annoying you, I guess. Some of them are books I think you'd like – the Odyssey and a few history books. Not sure about the rest of them. There's a lot of poetry – I guess Becca Franco liked poetry. Are you into poetry?"

He's never really tried reading much poetry. But he doesn't mention that, because he thinks there's enough crazy going on in his life right now without him starting to actually reply to Clarke's ghost when she asks him a question.

"You're not hearing me, are you? Or you're not replying, at least. I miss your voice, Bellamy. God, that's pathetic, isn't it?"

Of course ghost-Clarke misses his voice. He would do that – make it so that the memory of her that lingers in his imagination is far more fond of him than the real Clarke ever was.

"I guess I'll try again tomorrow."

She doesn't fade like he expected her to. He's pretty sure that's what ghosts do, in old Earth literature and media. Rather, she vanishes, flickering out of existence as if a switch has been flipped.

God. He's pathetic. He leaves the woman he loves behind to burn to death, and he can't even get her ghost right.

…...

Bellamy's trying very hard to hold it together, visits from ghost-Clarke notwithstanding. Sure, he cries quite a lot, but he makes a point of doing it only in his room at night. And each morning, without fail, he dresses and leaves his room to eat breakfast with his crewmates and try to convince them that he is still functioning, more or less.

If anyone notices that he always dresses in a tired blue Henley, not dissimilar to the one Clarke wore those first few weeks on the ground, they never mention it. That's just as well – he's not sure he'd be able to justify that outfit choice if anyone did ask. And he certainly wouldn't want to end up accidentally letting slip that he's started seeing hallucinations of Clarke dressed in that very same top, these last couple of days.

This morning is a morning like any other. He sits between Raven and Monty at the breakfast table, eating a frankly revolting ration bar and wondering why it is that he's still alive.

Then Clarke shows up.

She doesn't take a seat, because she's a figment of his imagination, and he's not as crazy as all that, yet, it turns out. He hasn't actually reached the point of accommodating his imaginary best friend in the seating plan.

"Bellamy, hey. How are you doing? Still not hearing me?"

He doesn't answer, because he obviously can't talk to her in front of all their friends.

"Bellamy?" She repeats, speaking over a point Monty was trying to make about algae which sounded almost interesting.

"You know what, I think I'm just going to keep calling anyway." Clarke continues. "So, how's space? I'm imagining you guys having breakfast. How are all those ration packs we helped Raven load into the rocket? I bet they taste as bad as the ones you left behind."

"Bellamy?" Raven asks, and he gathers that he has missed something.

"Yeah, sorry. Lost in thought. You were saying?"

Again, he doesn't hear her because Clarke is speaking, and to be honest, he has never been much good at listening to anyone else as long as Clarke has something to say. "So, you know I was telling you that Becca was into poetry? I read some. Not sure I understood it. Medicine is definitely more my thing. But I wonder whether you might have liked some of it. There were some complicated mythology references I think you would have appreciated." She sighs. "OK, poetry chat. Maybe not my most interesting conversation starter." She jokes, and he cannot help but smile.

"Bellamy?" Raven repeats, visibly concerned. "Bellamy? What's wrong?"

He shakes his head, forces himself to ignore Clarke as she continues to prattle on about what she's been reading. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Just – can anyone else hear that?"

"Hear what?" Raven asks, eyes narrowed, now over half way to alarmed, judging by the look in her eyes.

"Nothing." Bellamy repeats, slightly frantic. "I know it's nothing. It's just – I've been hearing Clarke sometimes. But that's normal, right, when you're grieving? It's not weird." He gets the words out, rushed and defensive.

All at once, Raven's face relaxes. The others at the table stop staring at him, and start nodding gravely. Monty even reaches out to squeeze his shoulder.

"Yeah, that's quite common, Bellamy." Raven assures him. "Has it been happening a lot?"

He swallows stiffly. "It started a couple of days ago. I guess – yeah, it's been happening a fair bit since then."

"OK. That's OK, Bellamy. Just let us know if you want to talk, yeah?"

"We're here to support you." Monty adds, calm.

"Losing someone you love is hard." Harper chimes in, with a soft smile.

He nods, and thanks them, and tries to catch up with what Clarke has been saying while he was talking to people who are, you know, _still alive_. But it seems like he's missed too much of the conversation, and now she's explaining something about nightblood that he cannot keep up with, and suddenly he's missed his chance to hang out with his imaginary friend for today.

That's just as well. It wouldn't do to get attached to her. He mustn't encourage this dysfunctional coping mechanism his subconscious has presented him with.

Only a tiny voice in his mind whispers that it's a shame, that now Clarke is gone, he ought to make the most of her company however and wherever he is offered it.

After a few seconds of silence Clarke disappears, leaving him feeling strangely bereft.

And then John Murphy makes it worse, because making it worse is what he does.

"You know, last time I knew someone with an imaginary friend it was Jaha and ALIE. Look how that turned out."

Bellamy tries to laugh, but he's really not in a laughing mood, just now.

…...

It becomes clear, in the days and weeks which follow, that ghost-Clarke can appear to him at any time and any place. He supposes that's hardly surprising – as she's a figment of his imagination, it makes sense that she would follow him around.

But he's still a bit surprised when she shows up at night.

He's just lying there, in bed, staring at the ceiling. He figures staring at the ceiling and hating himself for leaving Clarke to die is probably slightly more healthy behaviour than staring out of the window at the burning Earth while he stews in self-loathing. At least this is a bit less _graphic_ , as a way of torturing himself by reflecting on her fate.

"Bellamy, hey." Clarke says, appearing in the corner of his room, and he almost jumps out of bed in shock.

For a moment, there, in those magical midnight hours, he allowed himself to forget that she's not real. That she's dead, and that this is merely a manifestation of his grief.

He's remembered that again, now, so he doesn't rush over there to embrace her. He simply rolls onto his side so that he can stare at her while she speaks. He misses her face, OK? He just misses her face. And if this is the only way he can see her, he damn well intends to make the most of it.

"Sorry. I know I don't normally call in the middle of the night. I don't know why I'm apologising when you can't even hear me." She sighs. "Right, enough of that. Anyway, couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd call you. Just to say – I don't know – hey?"

He chuckles a little. He seems to remember that the real Clarke was a little more coherent, rather more put-together.

She continues, because of course she's a ghost, so she doesn't reprimand him for his laughter like the living Clarke might have done. "I don't know why, but calling you always makes me feel better. It makes me feel closer to you somehow. And, yeah, I guess I'm just feeling very alone tonight." A pause. "I need to go outside tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to that. I guess it'll be good to see the sun, maybe."

"I miss the sun." He finds himself telling her, before he has chance to exert his self-control and remember that talking to a ghost is probably rather foolish. Well, then. Now he's started, he might as well go all-in. "I miss you more." He mutters, self-conscious.

She doesn't acknowledge that, naturally. "I should try to get some sleep. I'm going to need it. I'll call you again tomorrow, I promise."

He nods, watches her disappear. It figures that he's still worried she's not getting enough sleep even when she's dead, he decides. Of course, after all that time he spent protecting her during life, his subconscious is now concerned about the sleep patterns of a ghost.

There's something a bit odd about all this, he decides. _I'll call tomorrow_ , she said. And _calling you makes me feel better_ , and _I don't normally call in the middle of the night_.

Call? Why _calling_?

…...

She does call again the next day. He figures that maybe _call_ is a bit of a figure of speech, here, a convenient way for his subconscious to describe the way he yearns for her. Kind of like _the call of the wild_ , or whatever. Yeah, that makes sense.

One thing he cannot make sense of at all, though, is the level of detail in these hallucinations. He's not hallucinating her on the Ring, or some vague concept of her surviving on Earth. He seems to be hallucinating a very complicated scenario, step by step.

Today, she's been digging out the rover. His imaginary friend has spent the entire day digging in the desert. How the hell is he making this stuff up?

"Bellamy, hey. I did it. I'm done. I've – I've got a rover. I think I might really be able to make it now, you know? I can drive to Polis and get in the bunker."

He snorts. That figures. The next step in this complicated fantasy of his involves her safely in the bunker with his sister.

"I hope they let me in. I haven't really thought about what happens next if I can't get in. No, positive thoughts, Clarke. Bellamy doesn't want to listen to you falling apart."

Another snort. Listening to _himself_ falling apart, however, he seems to be an expert at.

"Anyway, I hope you've had a good day. What are you up to, up there? You must have found some books by now. I hope you're living your life, you know? I hope you're not worrying about me." A gulp. "I hope you don't think I'm dead."

He stops snorting and starts crying, then. What else can he do? Of course he thinks she's dead. He thinks that, because he as good as killed her, leaving her behind on a burning planet. And it figures that this hallucination, this completely insane manifestation of his guilt, is now torturing him, teasing him like this.

He wonders if he'll ever forgive himself for killing her. Maybe he'll ask her that, one day. It seems like she's sticking around, so he supposes he ought to get comfortable with her.

…...

Bellamy's friends are worried about him. He doesn't blame them – he's worried about him, too.

"How are you doing, Bellamy?" Monty asks him at breakfast, a certain false brightness in his tone.

"I'm fine." Bellamy says, because he's not sure he has either the strength or the vocabulary to give an honest answer to that question.

"How are you doing with – you know – _grief_?" Monty presses, visibly uncomfortable.

"You mean am I still hearing things? Still seeing things?" He doesn't see the point in pretending otherwise.

Monty nods, frowning.

"Yeah. Clarke tells me she's going to visit Arkadia today. Not sure what she hopes to achieve by doing that, but she's a hallucination so maybe it doesn't much matter." He says, tone brittle, over half way to hysteria.

"Arkadia?" Monty asks, confused.

"She's a very detailed manifestation of grief." Bellamy says, hating himself more and more with every moment. This feels even more insane said out loud than it does when he's just staring at her in the comfort of his own room. "She spent the first few weeks in the lab, then she dug a rover out, then she's been driving around the wasteland. She couldn't get into the Polis bunker."

Monty nods, thoughtful. "So it's like you're imagining she's survived? Have you tried to stop it? Maybe you need to help your subconscious to process what really happened. Have you tried writing down what did happen? Or maybe repeating the true version of events whenever – when you hear her?"

He snorts. "What do you think I've been doing, Monty? Do you think I _enjoy_ torturing myself like this? _Of course_ I've tried telling myself it's not real."

He wonders if he might tell Clarke about this ridiculous conversation later. He knows his old friend is only trying to help, but he's not doing a great job of it, and Bellamy's finding it frustrating. He needs to get it off his chest, vent to someone who will really listen to him.

Does having an imaginary friend go both ways? Is he allowed to tell her about his day, too?

…...

He tries to tell her, that same afternoon, when she shows up in the corner of his room.

"Hey. I haven't found much useful at Arkadia so far." She begins.

He starts speaking. "Clarke. Hey. Can we talk? I mean – can I talk to you? Can you listen to me?" He sighs. There's no point asking a ghost's permission. "I just wanted to tell you -"

"I found Jasper's goggles." She tells him, sounding rather choked, he thinks.

He's not sure whether he's supposed to reply to that, or keep getting his concerns off his chest. "So Monty thinks that I should -"

"I don't know what to do with them, Bellamy. Do I keep them to torture myself? Should I – should I bury them?"

She's not listening to him – so much is clear. He's annoyed about that, because he thinks that if he's going to invent himself a dysfunctional coping mechanism like this she could at least have the courtesy to listen to him when he needs her to. It seems silly that he would fabricate this imaginary friend for himself but not have her serve the purpose he needs, right now.

"I don't think I can bury them. I just – I can't bear to say goodbye to anyone else." She continues, then lapses into noisy sobs, thick tears spilling down her cheeks to splatter that damn blue Henley.

He gives up his annoyance, then. Clarke crying has always had a way of getting to him, and even though he knows this isn't real it's still tugging at his heartstrings. He has no idea how to go about comforting a ghost, but he knows he has to at least try.

Maybe this is his penance, he wonders. Maybe he has to spend the rest of his life, helpless, hearing her cry, to balance out the fact he left her behind to scream, unheard, as she burnt to death in Praimfaya.

"You're OK, Clarke. You've still got me. And – I guess it seems like I've still got you."

She doesn't hear him. Or perhaps his words make no impact.

Either way, he's reaching the conclusion that his guilty conscience is a very strange beast indeed.

…...

The next few days are difficult. Clarke keeps crying, and he can't tell any of his friends about it to lighten the load he feels crushing his chest, because he doesn't want them to remind him he's crazy.

More than that, he doesn't want their pity. He doesn't deserve pity – it was ultimately his decision to leave her behind.

Then she stops crying and it gets worse. Because instead of sobbing, now, she's just giving way to silent despair.

It's stupid that he's worried about his imaginary friend's mental health. It adds a whole new layer of guilt, somehow, because he did precious little to save Jasper from his demons but now he's going out of his mind with worry over the low mood of Clarke's ghost.

But he's already left her behind to die once, and he doesn't want to listen to her die all over again.

She's in the desert, today, and it doesn't sound good. "I think this might be goodbye, Bellamy. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I wanted to do better. I wanted to be strong for you. That's – that's why I keep calling you, so I can stay strong. But it's not enough. I'm sorry."

He's not enough. He's not enough even to keep a ghost happy. That though has hot tears spilling down his cheeks, so thick and fast he cannot even begin to wipe them away.

"I love you. I want you to remember that, Bellamy. No matter what."

And then she's gone. That's it – she's just gone.

He hated that ghost, when she first appeared. He hated her for calling him out on his abandonment of Clarke, for prolonging the agony of mourning her, for making him hope in some tiny, delusional corner of his heart that she might still be breathing.

But now she's gone, and that's even worse.

…...

She's back the next day. She mentions nothing about saying goodbye in the desert, nor about loving him – she simply tells him some strange story about a gun and a bird and a valley, which is presumably a metaphor for some aspect of his guilt, but it's one he cannot immediately make sense of.

He can't make sense of any of this, to be fair. He doesn't see why his subconscious would make up a scenario where the dead love of his life was suicidal in a desert, only to ignore it the next day. Was it simply designed to torture him further, with the love confession thrown in to really break him? Was the whole scene just an exercise in driving home his guilt?

Whatever it was, it's over now, and Clarke is smiling from the corner of his room, telling him about roasted rabbit and still wearing that old blue Henley.

…...

Just when he thinks it can't get any weirder, it goes and gets weirder.

Ghost Clarke makes a new friend. Yes, that's right – his imaginary friend has a friend. And this friend is a young girl, a nightblood, who hurts Clarke with a bear trap and then steals her supplies.

How the hell is he making this up?

He's not doing a great job of making it up, anyway. The Clarke who appears in his room or the hallway or the bathroom looks the same as ever, not a hair out of place, with no sign of the injury she describes from the bear trap. She remains unchanging, but for her shifting and uncannily realistic facial expressions.

Maybe he ought to spend these next five years studying psychology. Maybe he might make it half way to understanding all this before his time runs out.

She still likes to pop up when he's eating with his friends, especially at breakfast, and that always stresses him out. He wants to be able to listen to Clarke – even though he knows he shouldn't want to – but his friends ask questions if he is too distracted.

"I think I've really hit it off with Madi." Clarke informs him over the morning meal one day. "You know – the nightblood girl I've been telling you about. I gave her that sketch I did of her and she wanted to try drawing for herself. So – that's nice, I guess? At least I'm not alone."

He wants to reply to her, to say that he'll always be with her in his heart, but he figures he can't really say that while Monty is frowning at him because he isn't keeping up with his chat about the moonshine supply for board game night.

Clarke continues. "I want her to teach me more about surviving round here. It seems like the fish in the river are her main food source and I don't know much about fishing."

Seriously, though, how is he making this stuff up?

"She does it with these spears, but it takes insane skills and balance. I think I'll stick to snaring -"

"Bellamy?" Raven's voice interrupts and he sighs.

"Yeah?"

There's a heavy pause. Raven looks like she's struggling with something. And then, at last, she speaks.

"How's Clarke?" She asks.

"You mean am I still hearing and seeing things?" He corrects her, guessing that's what she was debating saying.

"I guess." Raven concedes.

"She's fine. It's a great story. She's found this valley full of plants and animals, and she's found this nightblood child to rescue. And now she wants to learn how to fish."

He thinks the fishing is the most bizarre detail of the story, but Raven picks up on something else. "She's found a child? You – you hear her talking about a child?"

"Yeah."

Monty joins in. "What's she like, this child?"

Bellamy considers that for a moment. He knows a lot about Madi, considering she's not real and all. "She's fierce. She's a survivor, smart, too. But it sounds like she's sweet under all that. She likes to draw."

Monty gives him a pitying look. Raven mutters something about _original, Blake_. Harper reaches across the table to squeeze his hand in support.

That's when he realises it. He understands what they're all thinking.

He's not just clinging to the ghost of the woman he loves. His subconscious has invented the perfect child for the two of them, too – resourceful and fierce yet fundamentally sweet, just as the child he would have dreamed of having with Clarke would be.

He literally has an imaginary family calling to him.

…...

He knows he's really lost it when he starts to seriously wonder whether it's real. For whole minutes at a time, he abandons logic altogether and considers that Clarke might really be alive. He starts to wonder how on Earth he could make up such specific details about places he has never been, how his subconscious knows so much about this remarkable valley. Just yesterday, for example, Clarke told him about the birds migrating, and he's pretty sure he knows nothing about bird migration routes.

He figures that ghost Clarke – or real Clarke, an inappropriately optimistic voice whispers in his mind – is living in the one green patch they can see on Earth when they look down at it. And he knows that he's heard her talking about it being former Shallow Valley Clan land.

What he really needs is a map of Shallow Valley, to put his mind at rest once and for all and prove to himself that he definitely is making this up. He could cross reference the map with details from Clarke's calls and know for certain that it's not true, and he's just imagining things.

He doesn't have a map of Shallow Valley. But he does have a handy Azgeda spy who knows the territory of the twelve clans like the back of her hand and owes him big time, so he seeks her out one afternoon.

He knocks at her door, because he'd rather not have this conversation in public.

"Bellamy?" Echo sounds surprised to see him, and he doesn't blame her. He doesn't exactly make a habit of spending time with her by choice.

"Echo. Hey. Can I come in? I wanted to ask you about something."

She nods, firm, frowning. He supposes that counts as a warm welcome, from an Ice Nation spy. He enters the room, and she does not invite him to take a seat so he stands, just inside the threshold, feeling distinctly out of place.

"I have some questions about Shallow Valley." He begins. "You know that land?"

She nods again, as if the answer is so obvious as to not be worth wasting words on.

He gathers his courage. "So I was just wondering – the things I've heard Clarke saying. The things I hear, I mean. I was wondering if any of them are true. She says there's a lake four miles north-west of the village. And that the village is really decorated, with coloured twine everywhere? But that can't be true, right? Because it's not real. So if you could just tell me it's not true -"

"It's true." Echo cuts him off. "Both those things are true. But – you understand that doesn't mean anything, don't you?"

He nods. "Yeah. Obviously. She's dead. I just wanted to – to check."

For the first time in as long as he's known her, Echo's eyes soften, her face grows more gentle. "I'm sorry, Bellamy. I know what it's like to lose someone. I've lost people I loved too, and it's so tempting to tell yourself they're still alive. But it must just be that you already knew those things about Shallow Valley and forgot you knew them."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Must be."

He excuses himself, feeling awkward and more pathetic than ever, and leaves Echo to do whatever it is that Echo does. He knows she speaks sense – he must know more about Shallow Valley than he realises, and his subconscious is using those details to enrich the hallucination.

The thing is, he's pretty sure he's never known anything about Shallow Valley in his life.

And so it is that, against sense and against sanity, some tiny corner of his heart goes on hoping.

…...

Clarke keeps presenting him with those implausibly precise details, but he's learnt to ignore them, now. He's learnt that there is no grounds for hoping, but also that part of him will continue to hope for the rest of his life, he suspects. There's no point hating himself for that.

He's quite busy enough hating himself for leaving Clarke behind to die.

He knows it's what she would have wanted, but that doesn't make it much better. She always was terrible at seeing her own value, at understanding quite how much she meant to him.

Even his own hallucination of her seems to have strangely low self-esteem.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're even missing me." She says to him, today. "Here I am calling you every day, and I know it's not your fault you can't answer but – it still sucks, OK? Just makes me feel a bit pathetic, that I'm holding onto you like this when for all I know you've moved on from me."

He snorts. One thing he has most definitely not done is moved on.

"I guess it's good that I've got Madi. At least someone still needs me. I guess I'm not very good at not being needed, after all those months taking charge."

"I need you." He whispers. He might not see much point in talking to a ghost, but he cannot let that go unsaid.

If there's one thing this whole messed-up situation proves, it's that he still needs her, even when she's dead and gone and crumbling to ash.

…...

Breakfast is the most dangerous time. He's worked that out, now, and is starting to see a pattern in the times she calls. Often it's mid-afternoon, when he's by himself in his room. But the next most common time is, infuriatingly, during breakfast.

He supposes there's a message there, somewhere. Clearly his subconscious feels particularly guilty first thing in the morning when he's eating with his friends, noticing that Clarke is dead and not with them since he left her behind and all.

She pops up this morning, just as Monty is trying to speak to him. He ignores her, carefully, because he wants to convince his friends he's coping.

"I found some books yesterday." Monty is telling him. "In one of the offices at the algae farm. Looks like someone used to read on duty instead of monitoring the water input. Anyway, Bellamy, I wondered if you wanted them."

"Yeah. Thanks." He likes books, and reading has to be a better idea than waiting for Clarke to call.

He still hasn't entirely worked out why she keeps using the word _calling_ , is still working with that half-hearted idea that it has something to do with yearning for her. But he's largely given up on worrying about it, decided that in the grand absurd scheme of things it's neither here nor there so he might as well use the same terminology.

Monty, meanwhile, is nodding. "Great. I thought it might do you good to read instead of -"

Bellamy stops listening, very suddenly, when he catches onto what Clarke is saying.

"You'd be so good with her. I mean, obviously you would – you're good with kids, even if you never admit it. But Madi especially has the personality to get on well with you, I think. She's quite excitable and impulsive. Kind of how I imagine any kid of yours would be." She pauses, chest bobbing slightly, the sight of her breasts in that damn Henley distracting him. Is it normal, to be attracted to a ghost? He brushes that thought aside as she continues. "I'm sorry, I know it's pathetic. But I just keep thinking how great it would be if you two could get to know each other. And maybe we could be a family. No – not appropriate. I should be concentrating on survival, not silly thoughts like that."

He sighs. He should be concentrating on sanity, not the imaginary child he wants to raise with a dead woman.

And yet somehow, listening to Clarke is a whole lot more interesting than listening to Monty – even though Clarke is dead, and even though he really does love books.

…...

Clarke is mostly doing OK, these days. No, that's a silly way of putting it – the ghost of Clarke he imagines is reasonably happy, these days. He guesses maybe that's a sign that his guilt is waning, or something.

But she tends to be rather less cheerful when she calls him at night.

He's half way through a rather unpleasant nightmare about his sister's death when Clarke's soft voice calls him from sleep.

"Bellamy? Bellamy, are you there?" He blinks awake as she keeps speaking. "I'm sorry for calling so late, Bellamy. I just – I guess I get more lonely at night. During the day, it's fine. I've got Madi, and we've got plenty to get on with, you know? Hunting and fishing and farming. But nights are tough."

"I get that." He whispers, because he finds the same thing. He finds that nights are filled with nightmares and with missing Clarke.

"But I'm doing OK, because I know I can always call you. You've no idea how much calling you has helped me through this, Bellamy. I guess I'll be able to tell you that when we meet again."

Great. Now his imaginary friend is making plans for when he dies and they are reunited in the afterlife.

It gets worse as she keeps speaking.

"I love you. I guess you already know that, but I don't say it often enough. I said it back in the desert, I think? I can't really remember much about that day. Anyway, I love you. I – I wish I'd told you sooner. Before Praimfaya, I mean."

"I love you, too." He tells her, because he doesn't see the harm in it. Maybe admitting it out loud will help him move on.

He wishes he'd told her before Praimfaya, too. He wishes it more than he has ever wished anything else – except, of course, that Clarke could still be alive.

…...

Bellamy does take those books Monty found. He figures that's a good idea, and will give him something to do rather than stewing in grief and making a show of keeping up with his chores to convince his friends he's doing OK. For the most part, they are not interesting books. There's a bunch of repetitive romances, of the cheesy and unremarkable kind. They hurt rather a lot, given his circumstances, because without fail the couple get together at the end, and that's a concept that feels rather alien to him just now. There's a few manuals about agriculture, and those are definitely not his thing.

And then there's the poetry.

He's never been into poetry before. But he's really not a fan of the rest of the books, and he does remember ghost-Clarke telling him about poetry, back when he was imagining her in Becca's lab. Maybe that's a hint, he figures – a message from his subconscious, suggesting that he might find it helpful to read some poetry. Poems are often about heavy themes like grief, he knows, so perhaps he might find solace in one of these books.

It all makes sense, the moment he finds the poem. By that he means that _everything_ makes sense, all at once, in a dizzying rush.

He reads _The Voice_ three times, when he first finds it. He dwells on the phrase _woman much missed_ , chants it over and over in his mind. Even the detail about her wearing blue is right, he muses, and he certainly relates to the idea of _the woman calling_.

He reads it a couple more times that evening, and then again in the early hours after another midnight visit from Clarke. He reads it before breakfast, just to bolster his courage for the day, and again when he pops home to change after training with Murphy.

Thanks to the poem, he understands, now. He understands that seeing and hearing dead people you love is a real thing, and he takes this as his final confirmation that Clarke is absolutely and truly dead. In some ways that makes him feel more alone – but he also feels less alone, because at least he knows, now, that he is not the only person who has ever lost his mind in quite this way whilst mourning someone he loves.

Other people have gone through this before him, and lived to tell the tale.

It's OK – that's what he ultimately decides is the moral of this story. It's OK that Clarke still calls to him, even though she's dead. It's OK that he misses her so damn much, and probably always will.

It's OK, and he's not entirely alone.

…...

He feels more confident trying to live a normal life, after the revelation of the poem. He is normal, after all – other people have felt grief like this, and he's not so strange. So it is that he has a go at getting on with life. He trains with Murphy ever more often, and they invite Echo and Harper to join them, too.

He asks Monty to lead a memorial to everyone they lost on the ground, and he manages to summon a couple of unobjectionable sentences to commemorate Clarke. It's not even half of what he feels about her, but it's better than nothing.

"Clarke was good." He begins, voice shaking. "She didn't always realise it, and we didn't always realise it. But everything she did was for the common good." He swallows. "She was so selfless, so selfless that she -"

He breaks off, swallowing down tears, not able to face talking about that last day and about leaving her behind.

That's when Clarke appears, of course. She shows up to her own funeral, and stands in the corner of the room and tells him about Madi. She narrates some story about fishing with the child, and about how she's trying to teach her how to shoot a rifle but she thinks Bellamy would do that better.

Maybe he ought to try his hand at writing poetry about the phenomenon of hallucinating an entire family, after the death of a loved one. Maybe he's not the only person ever to experience this, either.

Or maybe he is, and it's just something he's going to have to accept.

…...

Normal life goes OK for him, during the day. Clarke still shows up, of course, and interrupts his conversations with his friends, but they're all used to it by this point and Bellamy doesn't find it so stressful, now that he has embraced his new version of normality.

The nights are a different story. The night time is for reliving Clarke's death a hundred times, seeing flames rise whenever he closes his eyes. It's for waking, sweaty and panicking, all alone with no one to talk him back down to calm rest.

It's for listening to the sound of his own rough breathing and the woman, calling.

…...

Bellamy decides that the obvious solution to his problems with being alone at night is to find someone to share his bed. Sure, it might not be the most watertight plan of all time, but that's to be expected, he figures. Plans were always Clarke's area of expertise, after all.

So it is that he tries to date Echo. She's single, after all, and if he squints a little he can almost pretend that her decisive mind for strategy is a little like Clarke's quick thinking.

He fails. It's as simple as that. He perseveres, the first time Clarke shows up while Bellamy and Echo are watching a movie together. It's tough, but he ignores Clarke as best as he can while she recounts some funny prank Madi played on Clarke with a cauliflower.

OK, he doesn't ignore her very well. But he tries, really he does.

It happens again, and he pushes through it. And then again, and a couple more times. One evening, Echo even picks up on what's happening and says they can reschedule, if he needs them to.

He brushes her off. He doesn't want to reschedule – he just wants someone to keep him company at night.

He gives up, the night Clarke shows up while he's having sex with Echo. They're literally in the middle of the act, intertwined on his bed, when Clarke pops up in the corner.

"Bellamy, hey. How are you doing? I don't know why I still ask that when you're obviously not hearing me."

He stills, and pulls away from Echo.

Clarke continues, of course, because apparently his subconscious hasn't noticed that he has something else going on, here. "So let me tell you all about today. Madi told me we could make hair dye with these particular berries – apparently that's a traditional thing in Shallow Valley – so she took me to the field and we found loads of them. So I have pink hair now. I'm not sure what you'd make of it. I'm not sure what I make of it."

That's when Echo speaks up. "You're hearing her, aren't you?"

He doesn't see the point in lying. He nods, and keeps listening to Clarke's story. It's hardly a thrilling anecdote, as anecdotes go. His imaginary girlfriend and their imaginary child have been playing at hairdressing. He should probably get back to his real-life girlfriend, but somehow he just cannot bear to do it.

He makes a snap decision, because snap decisions have always been his way of operating. He decides that probably, Clarke showing up while he's trying to screw Echo is the universe telling him he's not ready to move on.

"I don't think I can do this." He tells Echo, voice heavy with regret.

"I don't think I can, either." She agrees. She either doesn't mind this development, he thinks, or she does mind but she doesn't let it show on her face.

So that's it. That's the end of his attempt at a relationship with Echo. And it occurs to him, a couple of hours later, while he's lying awake in bed and re-reading _The Voice_ for the thousandth time and reviewing the events of the evening, that it's the moment he stops considering Clarke his imaginary friend and starts calling her his imaginary _girlfriend_ in his mind.

He guesses that was bound to happen eventually.

…...

He keeps reading the poem. It's like an addiction – almost as addictive as this bizarre coping mechanism he's still clinging to. He starts going to breakfast a little later, deciding he might as well stay in his room and hang out with Clarke rather than trying to split his attention between her and his living friends.

"Morning." She greets him today. "It's raining today. I remember when we first landed I loved the rain because it made it real that we were on Earth. Now it's just a pain. Madi loves it though – she loves jumping in puddles and then she gets her boots wet and they take ages to dry out again."

"I miss the rain." He offers inconsequentially.

"How are you doing, up there? What are you up to today? I plan to teach Madi a reading lesson and then spend some time on the vegetable plot."

"I guess I'll train and read." He offers, because that's basically his life. "I've – erm – I've actually been reading some poetry." He swallows. " _The Voice_. It reminds me of you. Don't know if you've ever read it?"

She doesn't answer, of course. She keeps talking. "I'd better go, Madi's demanding breakfast. I'll call you later. Love you."

"Love you, too."

It's funny, how he answers her more often these days. It's a silly thing, because they can't actually hold a two-way conversation about the same content – for some reason his imagination does not reach that far. But all the same he feels less lonely when they're exchanging words, even if they are not even vaguely discussing the same topic.

He seems to be replying to her a lot more, recently, since he's accepted she's going to be his life partner even in death.

…...

His friends have noticed his new habit of arriving to breakfast later, because naturally the universe just will not give him a break.

"You're still hearing Clarke, then?" Raven asks, words abrupt but eyes surprisingly gentle.

"Yeah." He swallows. "I think I always will. Or at least until we get back to the ground, maybe. Perhaps that will give me some closure or whatever?"

"Maybe. I actually still hear Finn sometimes. It's not the same – I just think he's shouting my name from next door sometimes, when I first wake up in the morning and I haven't remembered yet. But – yeah. I wanted to tell you that." She concludes, visibly uncomfortable.

He's shocked. There's no other word for it. Tough, logical Raven, still struggling with grief?

"I think it's pretty normal." He offers. "Maybe not to hear someone as often as I hear Clarke but – yeah. It happens. I've read about it happening to some other people."

She nods, brisk. "Yes. Well. Let me know if you need to talk, or whatever."

Before he can offer her a hug, she is gone.

…...

Clarke keeps calling, and her voice grows brighter, her messages more cheery.

"I've been telling Madi all about you." She offers, this afternoon. He's in the bathroom, but he's chill with that, these days. Sometimes she shows up when he's taking a piss, and that's just life.

That's life, when you're in love with someone long dead.

"What have you been telling her?" He asks. He's learnt, now, that it feels more like a conversation if he says something trivial that stays firmly on topic, or asks a question that would encourage her to keep talking, if only she were both real and listening.

"I've been telling her the story of the City of Light, today. You know how you came up the tower with Murphy to save me and Emori? I think that was the first day that I let myself hope that you and me – we might really be something. Something more than friends."

"Me, too." He acknowledges. He supposes that's no surprise, that he and a figment of his imagination would have the same date in mind for the moment they fell in love.

"Anyway, it's her new favourite story. She keeps telling me she thinks it's _romantic_. I keep trying to stop her saying that, because I'm supposed to be the sensible one, aren't I?"

"Well I'm definitely not the sensible one."

"But I think she might be onto something. Maybe we can argue about whether that's romantic, when we meet again." If he's learnt nothing else, these years of having a hallucination of Clarke for company, he's learnt that he really hopes there is an afterlife. "Anyway, I'm having a good day, Bellamy. Missing you, of course, but Madi is delightful and the sun is shining and I'm doing OK. I hope you are, too."

Clarke seems happier in general, these days. He wonders whether that's a sign that he's getting better, processing his guilt.

But he is clearly far from over it, because she keeps calling.

…...

As the months pass and the day to return to Earth approaches, Bellamy wonders whether Clarke will stay with him on the ground. He told Raven that he thought he might find closure, back on Earth, and that maybe he would stop hearing things.

But he's used to having her around, now, and he realises he would miss her.

That's silly. He ought to want to move on from her. A fresh start and a new life on the ground would be the healthiest thing, he's pretty sure.

He doesn't tell Clarke that. He's not sure why – it's not like a ghost who never hears him could possibly take offence at his words. But that's how it is, right up until the very last night when he stands and looks out the window at the ravaged Earth.

"It's five years tomorrow." Clarke tells him from the corner of the room. "So I guess you're coming home. I can't wait to see you."

He tears up a little at that. He should have known that there would be one more twist of the knife before he could leave this life with Clarke behind and start again. He should have known she would hurt him with hope, just one last time.

"You're not going to see me." He reminds her softly. "You're dead."

"I hope you're still alive. All these years I've just presumed you are, and I've kept calling, because I couldn't bear to consider that you might not be. But now it's nearly time I'm worrying. Silly of me – I swear I used to have more sense, before missing you and worrying about Madi."

Bellamy could swear she used to have more sense when she was alive.

"Anyway, I have to go put Madi to bed. I guess – either I'll see you tomorrow, or I'll just keep calling."

…...

They land safely, the next day, and Bellamy makes haste to start exploring. He needs to check out this green patch where they landed as thoroughly as possible so he can prove to himself, once and for all, that Clarke is not here.

She hasn't appeared to him yet today. That's a good sign, he figures. She wasn't there at breakfast, and he hasn't seen her in the whole ten minutes they've been on Earth so far.

"I'm heading north." He informs his friends.

He starts walking without waiting for a response. He thinks he hears Monty shouting something from behind him – probably to wait up, or to move in pairs, but he's not about to stop and listen. He needs to keep moving and scout out this land as thoroughly as possible, and he needs to do that with a deep-seated urgency he cannot altogether explain.

It's good land, he thinks, as he walks. It's just as ghost-Clarke described it to him – Echo must have been right, that time she said that he must know more about Shallow Valley than he realised. The plants and wildlife are just as he expected, and the foliage is thick but not obstructive.

He's been walking about ten minutes when Clarke appears.

He should have known it, he thinks, torn between punching a tree in frustration and sinking to his butt on the forest floor in resignation. He should have known that a change of scene would not be enough to clear his conscience, or to convince him to bid farewell to the imaginary girlfriend he has come to rely on in recent years. And apart from anything else, he figures he must have internalised that damn poem by now. The setting certainly fits, he thinks, with the leaves and the gentle wind.

He frowns at her, as she walks towards him, her jaw slack in shock. The facial expression is no surprise – his visions always did have very convincing emotions – but he's confused by the change of outfit. She's wearing a heavy black jacket instead of her old Henley, and she seems to have had a haircut, too.

Why the hell is he seeing that? Why would he want his imaginary girlfriend to get changed to welcome him home?

"Bellamy?" She says at last, when she's mere feet away. "Is that really you?"

"Yeah, it's me. I – erm – I didn't expect to see you. I guess I thought you'd be gone when I got back here."

"You mean you didn't get my calls?" She asks, eyes flooding with tears. "You thought I was dead?"

He sighs. This again. "Yes. I thought you were dead. You – you _are_ dead. You've been dead for five years, and I don't understand why I'm still seeing you."

She shakes her head, urgent, tears falling. "I'm not dead, Bellamy. I'm not dead. I'm alive, I promise." She steps forward, reaches out as if to hug him.

He flinches backwards. He's had enough disappointment, hugging thin air these last few years, and he doesn't need to feel that heartache again.

"You're dead. You're dead but I still see you and hear you. That's been happening for a while." He reiterates carefully. This Clarke is more argumentative than the Henley-wearing iteration, and he's not sure he likes it. She seems to listen and respond to his points, too, which is a puzzle.

That makes her cry harder. "Bellamy? Really? You've been _seeing me_? God, I'm so sorry. That sounds awful."

"It's not so bad." He argues, defensive for reasons he cannot entirely understand. "It – I guess it helped me to accept you were dead, maybe?"

"Will you stop saying that?" She steps forward again, hand outstretched. "I'm not dead. I'm -"

" _Clarke_? Is that really you?" That's Monty's voice, and Bellamy is startled as he turns to see his friend stumble through the trees.

"Monty. Hey." Clarke greets him.

Well, then. This is a new development.

"Hang on. Monty – you can see her?" Bellamy asks, urgent. "You can hear her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course I can, Bellamy. She's right there." As if proving his point, Monty steps forward and hugs her soundly.

This isn't real. Bellamy knows it's not real, because it feels too good to be true, and things that good do not happen in his life, as a rule.

But all the same, he figures, he ought to check. When Monty finishes hugging Clarke – _ghost-Clarke_ , he corrects himself fiercely – he steps forward to hug her himself.

He takes it slowly. He stretches out his right hand, skims her cheek with a finger. That feels OK – she feels warm and solid and _there_ , so he rests a hand on her shoulder. And then he brings his other hand up, cups her other elbow, looks right into her eyes.

She breaks, then. She breaks and throws herself into his arms, hugging him so hard he can barely breathe.

He's pretty sure ghosts can't hug like that.

"You're alive?" He chokes out, confused.

"For the last time, yes I'm alive." She tells him, trying for a teasing reprimand, but rather undermining it by crying into his shoulder.

"You said you called me?" He asks, trying to work out what's going on here.

"Yeah. I called you every day on the radio, told you all about how I was getting on. I know it sounds silly but I think that's what kept me going."

"It doesn't sound silly at all." He tells her, because he thinks he's beginning to work out what's going on, here. There's an idea playing about the edges of his consciousness, and amongst other things it has him realising that there is a rather interesting link between calls and sanity, in his experience.

"No?" She asks, still hugging him tight.

"No." He swallows deeply. "Do you – does the name _Madi_ mean anything to you?"

She jumps back from his arms as if shocked. "It does. How did you – you mean you _did_ get my calls?"

"I guess. Kind of. It's – complicated. I thought I was losing my mind, actually." He looks around, wondering if Monty is going to join in, there, but his friend seems to have tactfully melted into the trees.

Clarke appears to be struggling to process that, which is saying something, given she's a rather bright woman. But right now she's standing before him, gulping loudly, frowning hard.

He decides to give her something else to think about.

"I love you." He informs her calmly. It's past time he said it, after all.

"I love you too." She agrees, with a flustered nod.

"I know. I've already heard you say it." He tells her, smiling softly.

That does it. That's the moment he can see her deciding that it just doesn't matter what he knows, or how he knows it. That the only thing that's important, here, is that they're both alive, and both together, and that they do not have to miss each other any more.

She steps forward, a small smile playing about her lips. She reaches up a hand to tangle in the curls at the nape of his neck.

And then she pulls his head down and presses her lips against his in a resounding kiss.

It's a good kiss. Obviously it's a good kiss – because this is Clarke, still breathing, still in love with him. Her lips are a little chapped, and he can taste salty tears, but it just doesn't matter. She's kissing him firmly, insistently, and he's kissing her back as if his life depends on it because actually, he's pretty certain his life does depend on loving Clarke.

He pulls back after a couple of minutes, because he figures they both need to breathe. And he looks down into her eyes and wonders what happens next.

"I want to meet Madi." He announces, because that seems like the obvious place to start.

"She's back home. I'll take you there." She says, reaching out to grasp his hand.

 _Home_. That sounds like an idea he can get behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
